million-dollar deal with VWS was due to ‘personal network’

“Contact with the government was solely due to Sywert van Lienden’s personal network,” said lawyer Han Jahae in the Amsterdam court on behalf of the media personality. The lawyer thus tried to disprove the accusation that Van Lienden had used his charitable work as a cover to get into the government and then put the mega order of 100.8 million in the name of his own commercial BV, so that he could still make money. to deserve.

Permanent resignation

Van Lienden and his partner Bernd Damme appeared in court for the first time today. They defend themselves against their suspension as board members of the Auxiliary Forces Alliance foundation. At the insistence of the Public Prosecution Service and former employees, the foundation is now temporarily managed by an administrator.

The Public Prosecution Service and the ex-employees want Van Lienden and Damme to be definitively fired as directors, because they would have abused the organization. The third partner, Camille van Gestel, has already resigned as director himself.

Recorded conversation

According to the lawyer of the ex-employees, Marcel Evers, and the Public Prosecution Service, it is established that Van Lienden and his partners abused the foundation to obtain orders and then place them with their own company. report of a telephone conversation recorded by a former employee. This shows that Van Lienden and his associates already discussed a commercial deal with the government on 13 April 2020. “We say that the government is forcing us to do this instead of a non-profit course,” Damme said in the conversation, recorded by a former employee.

In the conversation, Damme also acknowledges that their commercial company is deliberately given a name (Relief Goods Alliance) that resembles that of the non-profit Aid Troops Alliance. “That’s the point, it’s the same style.”

According to lawyer Marcel Evers, the tape recording shows that Van Lienden and his associates already ‘invented’ a reason before their agreement with the government to still earn money from the deal. The government had to be blamed for that. The Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport has always denied ever insisting that Van Lienden engage a commercial company for the 100.8 million euro deal.

Foundation disadvantaged

The Public Prosecution Service also believes that Van Lienden and his associates started ‘almost immediately’ with channeling orders to their own commercial company in order to earn money. It would be ‘many profitable orders’. By far the largest was the deal of 100.8 million euros with the purchasing organization of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, but there were also orders from, among others, McKinsey and the Ministry of Justice and Security. In this way they would have disadvantaged the foundation and withdrew millions of euros from the non-profit organization.

Van Lienden’s lawyer Han Jahae calls it a false representation that the non-profit foundation has been misused as a facade to earn money through a commercial company. According to Jahae, Relief Goods Alliance was not a competitor of the foundation. The non-profit organization focused exclusively on small-scale care and was ‘an immense success’ in that area. According to the lawyer, van Lienden and his partners are still ‘daily free for the foundation’, despite ‘all the commotion’.

The commercial company, Relief Goods Alliance, was created purely to take on the more risky transactions ‘for the corporate market’, according to Jahae. This would not have been possible with the foundation, also because business partners such as Coolblue would not have wanted that. According to Van Lienden, there has never been a ‘secret commercial operation’. ‘The stakeholders involved were all aware’, says Van Lienden. ‘We have simply been transparent, clear and honest.’

Coolblue and Randstad, who were involved in the foundation, have reported fraud. The companies claim that Van Lienden and his partners never disclosed that they also had commercial interests through their own private limited company.

‘I’ve been a strict butcher’

Van Lienden believes that he can continue as a director of the foundation, even if, according to the Public Prosecution Service, there is a conflict of interest due to the commercial interests of the directors. The judge wanted to know whether Van Lienden considers himself capable of investigating those allegations. The ex-official acknowledged that the image may arise that ‘the butcher then inspects his own meat’. ‘But I’ve always been a very strict butcher’, says Van Lienden. “My lawyer calls me the prosecutor in my own case.”

Tuesday’s trial is still pending. The court has yet to decide whether Van Lienden and Damme will be dismissed as directors of the foundation.

Criminal investigation

In addition to Tuesday’s civil case, there is also a criminal investigation into Van Lienden and his associates. According to the Public Prosecution Service, the men may also have been guilty of money laundering. Earlier it had become known that the businessmen are suspected of fraud and embezzlement.

‘Anyone suspected of embezzlement will receive ‘automatic’ money laundering’, explained Van Lienden, who calls this ‘no news’.

De Volkskrant revealed last year that Van Lienden, Damme and Van Gestel had placed a mega order of more than 100 million from the government with their own secret commercial company. To the outside world, they had always maintained that they worked ‘for no reason’ for the charitable foundation Hulptroepen Alliantie.